Live Design: Dual Lands, Novelty, and Callback

Your last chance on the battlefield! This month's design challenge is all about finality counters. Bring creatures back, but not forever. Added on top is a whole lot of Universes Beyond-style top down flavor! Tune in to hear about all the twists our designers found for this still-new mechanic. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

In this live-design episode, Tim and Juliet tackle a templating question based on the precedent of Party, with some help from Banding and Domain. Along the way, they examine the role that lands, dual lands, and 1/1s play in the sequencing of Magic's gameplay, and how all that's best of dark and bright (Shadowmoor and Lorwyn) meet in the aspect and eyes of novel designs. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

Washington Cube Champs is a two day event packed with cube draft! Not just a niche format anymore, cube has its own events and tournaments, including WCC pulling in over a hundred players! This week we've got a pair of interviews with players at the event, including a full breakdown of the cubes each of them played. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com Theme by Dee Culp

With Tarkir Dragonstorm winding up, we're following their lead and enhancing some old mechanics! Like going from Scavenge to Renew and Flashback to Harmonize, we asked the listeners to design some new mechanics based on old ones. Designing mechanics is one of the hardest things to do a designer, so check out the fruits of everyone's labor! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

Elders... be they dragons, dinosaurs, or Final Fantasy villains, they've always got cool abilities and an epic feel. This week we review your submissions to the challenge of designing new Elders creatures. Thrown into the mix is Juliet's challenge to include... the whole alphabet? Another great wacky mix of card analysis, creativity, and tangents about childhood and podcast saints. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

Crossover eps take another card game, teach you the rules, and compare those ideas to Magic. What can we steal to use in our own designs? For this ep, our hair is turning gold, our energy is radiating from our bodies, and normal humans can't even see the speed of our punches. It's Dragonball Z! It's got commander-style face cards, a more spell-like combat system, and plenty of wild nooks and crannies to its design. Brad's bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/specialbeamcannon.bsky.social Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

This one is for the flavor text lovers! Tim and Juliet have to dissect the flavor in this mystery pack from Peter. The pack's story has an order, and it's up to us to figure it out! Very much a Custom Magic episode. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com Moonshot's big charity stream is this weekend!

Starting in Zendikar, quests have been a fun way to build towards a goal. This week's guest, Qirn, has been thinking all about quests for a Legend of Zelda set and has some ideas. Along the way we break down the challenges of designing quests and the cards that are like quests. A deep dive! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

We've got Beacon regular IgnitedxSoul, aka Dylan, on the pod this week! The topic is Outpost Zero, a sci-fi horror set, but more specifically we're diving into some problem draft archetypes in the set. A nice mix of learning about the set and brainstorming ideas for designs! Check out Ignited's writing: https://www.dylan-tyler-ward.com Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com

Don't miss this ep! Our listeners each sent us one of two things: either a custom card (of any design) or a real card with the name and types changed. The job for us hosts is to guess which is which, and you can play along!  Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com